Thursday, August 23, 2012

Cost Effective Method of Fish Farming

The population of our country is very large. This population needs a huge quantity of fish to meet their protein demand. But fishes that grown by nature can’t supply this demand. So it is not reasonable to depend on natural sources to meet the food needs of the large number of community. For this reason over past few years, many farmers concentrated their idea on fish farming. There was a time when the profit was equivalent to investment. But gradually the amount of the fish farming decreased. Sometimes it becomes lose in business. So this is the time to make production cost less to increase our profit. Though the main production cost of fish farming is food cost so we have to decrease food cost. About 70% or more is food cost so we have to decrease it. Here I discuss about a method that is comparatively cheap, waste less and scientific.

Methods of Weight Ratio (Obsolete)

Generally fish farmers supply food to the pond according to total fish body weight. In this system they supply food in such a measurement that in a 40 decimal pond area if there are 150 pieces of fish in each decimal then every 100 gm weigh of fish 6000 pieces physical weigh is 100 gm * 6000 = 600 kg. According to 6 % ratio they need 36 kg food. Fish farmers supply food to their pond in this manner. Because fisheries scientists in the country with a strong suggestion to the fish farmers to use the method for a long days. Once there was a time when profit was incredible but now I think that profit is in limited amount so loss of food waste is one of the reasons for fish farming. In this case, the weight of 100 grams of fish needs how much food and daily growth rate of it doesn’t having to learn fish farmers supply them food which is strongly related to production costs.

Cost Effective Method :

Generally, each fish has a daily maximum physical growth rate that can’t be exceeded though it feed more and more food. As for example in a fixed age or weight if a fish has (ADGR) Average Daily Growth Rate is 2 gm and in this circumstance or situation we feed it 6 gm of food everyday then the ADGR can’t be more than 2 gm. In this situation we should supply it 4 gm of food everyday. We know that if the FCR (Feed Conservation Rate) is more than 2 then profit can’t be expected. The general FCR is 1:1.7 – 1:2. The rule is

Demand of Food = ADGR x FCR

If a fish of with high ADGR 2.5 need 5 gm of food (5=2.5 x 2). So for 6000 pieces of fish need 5 gm X 6000 = 30 kg of food. So if we apply them 36 kg food then 6 kg food will waste that can causes water pollution or if the fish eat it that will make extra stool before digestion. The food waste under water can’t be understood to the fish farmer. But in maximum cases the food waste is more which prohibited our profit in farming. By using the cost effective method our fish farmer can get the following benefits:

1.Food waste will be less.

2.Water quality will not be lost due to food waste.

3.We can get conception of daily growth rate, physical weight and demand of food.

4.It less the mortality of fish.

5.It ensures the profit as the cost of fish production is less.

Terms of the results:

We have to know the (ADGR) Average Daily Growth Rate (gm) by periodic checks for every 10 days.Correct information can be get in unique fish farming which can’t be in mixed cultivation.

Food should be balanced especially protein percentage are known.

We have to gather knowledge about age and average daily growth rate of different species of fish/the fish that has been cultivated.

The main issue of this cost effective method is at first we have to determine the demand of food then to feed them. I hope that fish farmers can be economically benefited through this cost effective method.